Sunday, May 11, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Vin Suprynowicz

With a little help from his friends

Douglas MacArthur was the perfect choice to administer postwar Japan -- many who knew him said he thought he was born an emperor (or at least a shogun), anyway.

But who's this guy Jay Garner, dispatched by George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to undertake the unenviable task of bringing Iraq halfway home to the 21st century?

I'm glad you asked.

Three-star Gen. Jay Garner (retired) served as commander of this country's Space and Missile Defense Command, outside Washington, D.C., from 1994 to 1996. Garner subsequently served as assistant vice chief of staff for the Army until his retirement in August 1997, after which he went to work as president of SY Technology.

And that's where his resume starts to get interesting.

In a striking red-white-and-blue cover story headlined "Rocket Racket," the 10-year-old weekly Colorado Springs Independent last June broke the story of a local whistle-blower with the euphonious name Biff Baker, who has a few things to say about SY Technology and their new chief rainmaker, retired Gen. Jay Garner.

"A West Point graduate, Baker spent 22 years as an Army officer before retiring in August 2000," wrote Terje Langeland of the Independent. "He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and, in his last assignment, served as director of plans for the Army Space Command in Colorado Springs, one of the main agencies involved in developing a future missile-defense system."

After retiring, Baker went to work on a doctoral degree and began teaching at Colorado Technical University. In the fall of 2001, he received an offer to return to the missile-defense program, this time as an employee of Alabama-based COLSA Corp., a subcontractor working for the Department of Defense.

Baker's job with COLSA was to inspect the work being done on a major segment of the missile-defense program. "He would eventually discover a handful of contract arrangements that `smelled of shenanigans.' Each of them involved work being performed by SY Technology, a California-based defense contractor. ... "

Another thing the arrangements had in common was that each involved a contract being negotiated on a sole-source basis, rather than through competitive bidding. And SY Technology had been taken over a few years back by retired three-star Gen. Jay Garner.

Baker says he was first alerted to the questionable contract arrangements in late December 2001.

That month, the Space and Missile Defense Command announced it intended to award SY Technology a five-year contract in the amount of $48 million. The defense command claimed the contract was being negotiated on a sole-source basis because SY Technology was uniquely qualified to do the work. Baker disputed the notion, saying dozens of other contractors were equally qualified.

The proposed contract award has subsequently been contested by a rival defense contractor, DESE Research of Huntsville, Ala.

Baker says he passed along his concerns to the Missile Defense Agency's Washington headquarters. But he never heard back.

On March 7, 2002, Baker seized an opportunity to speak with Gen. John W. Holly, in charge of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program office. Baker attended a speech that Holly was giving at Schriever Air Force Base. Afterward, Baker handed a letter to Holly that described his concerns about improper contracting practices.

He recalls that Holly praised him for his work. (You can see it coming, right?)

Soon, strange things began to happen. On March 11, 2002, Ken Grant, Baker's boss at the COLSA subcontracting company, called him to inquire about rumors that Baker had harassed a female employee working for one of the contractors in the program. Baker says he had "no clue" what Grant was talking about.

The female employee, Jennifer Brittenham, also told the Independent that Baker had never harassed her.

Then, on March 13, 2002, Grant called him again, asking about rumors that Baker had somehow angered three Army colonels by behaving inappropriately. He had never even met two of the three colonels in question, he says.

Then, on the morning of March 15, 2002, Baker says he received another phone call from Grant, telling him he'd been taken off the missile-defense contract. He was instructed not to go to work and told to turn in his security credentials and his keys to COLSA's local headquarters.

Baker says Grant told him the orders came from Thomas DeVanney, a deputy to Gen. Holly. Two days later, Baker says, Grant called again -- this time from a pay phone -- and told Baker he'd been "under a lot of pressure" to get rid of him, and that the orders had originated from Holly himself.

Meantime, Baker's claims that missile-defense contracts are being improperly awarded to Jay Garner's firm are backed by an attorney representing one of SY Technology's contracting rivals, DESE Research of Huntsville. The attorney, Howell Roger Riggs, claimed in court in February, 2002, that Garner is receiving a "payoff" for supporting his successors at the Space and Missile Defense Command during a lengthy feud between the command and U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican, which came to a head in 2001.

Riggs' allegation that Garner may have received a "payoff" is the sole aspect of this story on which SY Technology would comment. Mike Fees, the company's attorney, told the Independent, "It simply is not so."

In his February, 2002, deposition, Garner denied using personal relationships to land contracts. "I do not go to my friends for business," Garner said, according to the transcript. "I get business from my friends, but it's not solicited by me. It's given to us because of the quality of our company."

Two U.S. senators, including Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., "expressed strong interest" in Baker's allegations, the Independent reported. "Obviously, we think it's very serious," Allard told the newspaper.

Next week: The story gets dismissed as "business as usual."

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega."